Great Value Pitcher vs Brita Standard
Bottom line
In our scoring the Brita Standard Pitcher wins at 5.6/10 to the Great Value HS528N's 1.5/10, and the gap is about what can be verified rather than about how either filter performs at the sink. The Brita's certificate is on an accredited registry; the Great Value's claim names nobody, and we found no matching listing on NSF or WQA. That is a statement about the public record, not a finding that the Great Value pitcher fails to reduce anything - if Walmart published a real certifier and certificate number, its score would rise. One thing worth knowing about the winner too: the Brita Standard is not certified for lead. If lead is your reason for filtering, neither of these is the answer.
These sit a few feet apart at the store, $23 for the Great Value against $36.99 for the Brita, so the fair question is what the cheaper one gives up. The Brita Standard is WQA certified to NSF/ANSI 42 for chlorine and zinc and to NSF/ANSI 53 for copper, cadmium and mercury, certificates listed on a public registry you can check yourself. The Walmart listing for the Great Value HS528N says 'Certified to NSF/ANSI 42&53' but names no certifier, no certificate number and no registry, and when we searched the NSF and WQA databases for HS528N we found no listing. Under our rubric a claim nobody stands behind on a public record earns no certified credit. Walmart also publishes no standalone price for the replacement cartridge, so we cannot compute a cost per gallon for it and leave that as a labeled gap rather than guessing at one.
| 0 certified / 4 marketed | Certified vs marketed contaminants | 5 certified / 5 marketed |
| 0.0 | Verified Contaminant Reduction35% | 1.0 |
| 0.0 | Total Cost of Ownership25% | 9.0 |
| 0.0 | Certification Independence15% | 10.0 |
| 5.0 | Capacity & Flow Fit15% | 5.0 |
| 7.0 | Practical Fit10% | 7.0 |
FAQ
- Is the Great Value Water Filter Pitcher (HS528N) better than the Brita Standard Pitcher?
- In our scoring the Brita Standard Pitcher rates 5.6/10 and the Great Value Water Filter Pitcher (HS528N) 1.5/10. In our scoring the Brita Standard Pitcher wins at 5.6/10 to the Great Value HS528N's 1.5/10, and the gap is about what can be verified rather than about how either filter performs at the sink. The Brita's certificate is on an accredited registry; the Great Value's claim names nobody, and we found no matching listing on NSF or WQA. That is a statement about the public record, not a finding that the Great Value pitcher fails to reduce anything - if Walmart published a real certifier and certificate number, its score would rise. One thing worth knowing about the winner too: the Brita Standard is not certified for lead. If lead is your reason for filtering, neither of these is the answer.
- Is the Great Value pitcher NSF certified?
- Its Walmart listing says 'Certified to NSF/ANSI 42&53,' but it names no accredited certifier, no certificate number, and links no registry. We searched the NSF and WQA databases for HS528N and found no listing. So we credit it no certification. That is what we could and could not verify, not a measurement of the filter.
- Does the Brita Standard remove lead?
- It is not certified for lead. Its WQA certifications cover chlorine and zinc under NSF/ANSI 42 and copper, cadmium and mercury under NSF/ANSI 53, and we credit only what is certified. Within the same brand, the Elite cartridge is the one that carries lead certification.
- Why is there no cost per gallon for the Great Value pitcher?
- Because no standalone replacement-cartridge price is published anywhere we could source it. The cartridge is rated for 42 gallons and the listing describes it as Brita-compatible, but without a real, dated price we will not compute a cost per gallon. We label the gap instead of estimating, which is also why its total cost of ownership scores zero rather than being guessed upward.